


and we'll never be the same

by AlmondRose



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe in the literal sense, Angst, Coming Out, F/F, Found Families, Implied HarperCass, M/M, Mutual Pining, Panic Attacks, Road Trips, Slow Burn (kinda?), Tags to be added, Timeline Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-06-14 09:25:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 14,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15385746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmondRose/pseuds/AlmondRose
Summary: Steph and Tim go to find the missing links from alternate timelines to theirs. What they find is much, much more than they bargained for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> aka i'm gay and this is what i want from rebirth
> 
> This fic is canon compliant as of today (July 21 2018) but it probably won't be for much longer and was inspired by Detective Comics #981 and Flash #50. More tags will be added later but I don't wanna spoil anything. I haven't done a longfic in a while so bear with me here. I'm gonna try and update pretty regularly but we shall see....anyway have fun!

Steph doesn’t really know what she expected when she agreed to go on this trip with Tim. A secret headquarters, maybe, where he’d do research and she’d kinda help and mostly walk around whatever town they’re in and try and find herself, and then he’d figure out all the timeline stuff and tell her about being Batgirl and then--and then Steph’s not sure. Then she marches right up to Babs and shows her the evidence? She marches up to _Bruce_ to show him the evidence? Either way, it doesn’t really matter, because that’s not what happens. At all.

 

They drive the whole whole night through, and then when it’s morning and Steph’s eyes are drooping they stop at a shitty motel in either Delaware or Maryland, and Tim gets a room with only one bed and tells Steph to use it, then he unloads his computer and sits on the floor and starts typing madly.

 

Steph stands for a second and stares at him before she curls up on the bed, up close to the wall. She thanks every deity she doesn’t really believe in that she’s tiny and if Tim decides to go to bed they probably won’t touch. Being with Tim in any romantic sense is the last thing she needs right now, and she screws her eyes tight and she hopes she won’t regret impulse-agreeing to this crazy trip.

 

Steph falls asleep to the sound of Tim’s keyboard still clicking madly.

 

\----

 

When she wakes up, the room is dark and she’s alone in the bed. She sits up carefully and looks around. Tim is on the floor, right where she left him, but fast asleep. The clock next to the bed says that it’s 5 pm, and Steph’s stomach rumbles.

 

She swings her legs off the bed and hops down, tiptoeing over to Tim. She looks at him for a second. The light from his computer shines on his face, illuminating his open mouth with the drool sliding down his chin.

 

 _Gross,_ Steph thinks, and she closes the laptop and carefully reaches her hand into his pocket and extracts his wallet.

 

She takes a twenty, and leaves his wallet next to him. She grabs the keycard from the nightstand and puts her flip-flops on and leaves, hoping for a vending machine or something.

 

She finds one and loads up on snacks and drinks and helps herself to a bag of chips before she goes back to the room. She stops outside the door and looks at Tim’s car.

 

She considers, for a wild moment, stealing it and driving far, far away, to start a new life in California or something, but she thinks that she’d miss Gotham, and she thinks that restarting her life in California just to avoid Tim isn’t necessarily called for. Besides, she signed up for this road trip, so she goes back inside and kicks Tim’s legs and says, “Get up, time to go.”

 

“What?” Tim asks blearily, and Steph says, “We aren’t going to find out anything by crashing in motel rooms. Let’s _go.”_

 

“Okay, okay,” Tim says, and he gets up, gathering his wallet and his keys and shoes. They hadn’t taken anything else inside, really, so Steph goes back to the car and Tim goes to check them out of their room.

 

She puts her feet up on the dash and blasts the radio and plugs her phone in and checks the notifications. She has a text from Cass that’s just a car emoji, and a text from an unsaved number that Steph has memorized anyway that says “Be safe.” and that’s it. Steph considers throwing her phone but settles for turning it off and sticking it in the cupholder and cranking the radio louder.

 

Tim comes back and says, “Do you want to drive?” while he slides into the driver’s seat.

 

“Nah,” Steph says, and she rustles through her backpack for some gum while Tim pulls away from the curb and starts to drive again. “It’s not like I know where we’re going, anyway.”

 

“Yeah, I don’t really know either,” Tim says, and Steph blinks.

 

“I thought you did?” she says, and Tim says, “No, I’m making it up as I go along. Maybe I’ll remember somewhere, but for now….we’re just driving.”

 

“Alright,” Steph says, wary, and she puts the gum in her mouth and chews contemplatively. Tim gets on the freeway and drums his fingers on the wheel and says, “You said you loved me.”

 

He says it in a quiet, sad sort of voice, and Steph sighs.

 

“Listen,” she says. “I’m not sure what I’m feeling. It was easy to say that I loved you but it’s harder to think it or believe it. I...I need some time, okay? To sort everything out.”

 

“Okay,” Tim says. “ _I_ love you.”

 

Steph’s fists curl and uncurl.

 

“Please don’t say stuff like that,” she says. “Can we consider ourselves broken up, until I figure this out?”

 

“I--yeah. Yeah, I can do that,” Tim says, looking straight at the road and not at her.

 

“I want to relearn how to be friends before we can be more-than-friends, okay?” Steph says. “We used to have something great.”

 

“Yeah,” Tim says. “I understand.”

 

And Steph recognizes that as the bat-way of ending the conversation, so she just blows a bubble and looks out the window and watches Maryland or Delaware or wherever the hell they are pass by next to her.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so i feel like some people reading this might think it's gonna lead up to timsteph?? and i can assure you that it's really, really not.

The things Steph has with her are a backpack that has headphones, a toothbrush, a half-empty tube of toothpaste, a teddy bear that her mom gave her when she was little, a shitty laptop, a half-empty box of tampons, and a pair of socks inside it. She also has a duffel bag with a pair of pajamas and two changes of clothes and a package inside the leg of her pajama pants, and a brand-new pack of underwear, cause Steph hadn’t really thought it through. Besides those two bags, she has her wallet, her phone, and a charger for said phone, and that’s it. When Steph had agreed to this roadtrip, all she’d had was what she needed to drive to Ivy University and back, and now that they’ve been on the road for a week, she can’t decide if she likes the minimalist lifestyle or not.

 

She’s driving and Tim’s in the passenger seat with his feet on the seat and his knees near his nose, doing something on his phone, when he says, “Get off at this exit.”

 

“Do you need to pee again?” Steph asks, and Tim says, “No, no, I think we should head to Central.” He says it like there’s no reason she should question this. 

 

“In  _ Missouri?” _ Steph asks, as if there’s any other Central City. “Like, home of the Flash?”

 

“What other Central is there?” Tim says, and Steph gets off at the exit like Tim’d said to. 

 

“Why are we going to Central? Did you remember a base there, or something?” Steph says, and Tim shakes his head. 

 

“No, but there’s been some anomalies in the speed force there, recently. Maybe we should check it out, or something.”

 

“What could we  _ possibly  _ do to help with the speed force?” Steph says, picturing her and Tim on the sidewalk watching Flash fight a ball of lightning. 

 

“Not much, but I do know that a lot of times when there’s disruptions in the speed force there’s disruptions in timestreams, and that’s what we set out to figure out, right?”

 

“I guess,” Steph says, and she pictures, again, the image of herself as Batgirl that Ulysses had shown her. She still can’t really wrap her mind around it. Her, Batgirl? It seems ridiculous. 

 

But maybe--maybe she  _ will  _ find her answers, after all. She casts a look at Tim, and she wonders what he’s looking for.

 

“Hey, Tim?” Steph says. “Why don’t you drive?”

 

“Okay,” Tim says, and Steph pulls over at the next rest stop, one of the ones that looks exactly like every other rest stop in America, with picnic tables and vending machines and a bathroom. They switch seats and Tim pulls away and Steph gets out her phone and goes to her messages app and puts in the unlisted number that she has memorized anyway, and types,  _ Headed to Central.  _

 

She considers sending Cass a lightning bolt emoji as a hint, but she flips back to the unlisted number and it says her text has been read. She knows she’s not gonna get a response, so she sends Cass the lightning bolt anyway and shuts off her phone.

 

“Do you think in the I-was-Batgirl universe you had a different identity?” Steph says. Tim side-eyes her and she makes a face at him. 

 

“I don’t know,” he says. “It’s possible I had something entirely different, or that the way that universe worked I never even worked with Batman.”

 

“I guess,” Steph says. 

 

“I mean, if you’re Batgirl then that means Babs wasn’t, or that something happened to Babs, so it’s possible something happened to me or something. We have no way of knowing.”

 

“If the infinite multiverse theory is true than that means there’s a universe where  _ you’re  _ Batgirl,” Steph says, and Tim makes a face. 

 

“I  _ guess _ ,” he says, and Steph laughs. Her phone buzzes with a thumbs up emoji from Cass, and Tim tries to peek over to see what it is. 

 

“Who’re you texting?” he asks, and she says, “Cass.”

 

“Oh,” Tim says, in the tone of voice that implies that he didn’t realize that they’d be in touch, or maybe he thought that since Steph is  _ his  _ only friend then he must be  _ her  _ only friend well. 

 

Steph says, “Yeah,” and then leans down to reach into the CVS bag of snacks to pull out the party-sized bag of cheeto puffs. She opens the bag and offers it to Tim, who takes a handful. She curls around the cheetos and there’s probably like two days until they’re in Central, and Steph hopes that Central actually has answers, answers for both the Batgirl question and whatever-it-is that Tim’s looking for. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bart next chapter >:3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> longer chapter this time!

They stop for the night and drive all the next day and when they’re two hours out from Central they have to stop again, because Tim’s asleep in the passenger seat and Steph’s eyes are drooping. She pulls into another shitty motel--she’s beginning to think she’ll never sleep anywhere except Tim’s car and shitty motels ever again--and wakes Tim up and they get a room with two beds, this time, cause Steph is the one who asks for the room.

 

When Tim asks for rooms, he gets one with one bed, but Steph gets rooms with two beds, cause she doesn’t want to be that close to Tim. They’re already stuck in a car all the time, she wants some space when she sleeps. But she suspects that Tim thinks if they sleep in the same bed than Something will happen between them and that’s not really what she wants at all.

 

They go to the room and she claims a bed and changes into her pajamas since she’s been in these clothes for like last twenty-four hours. She puts the purple bundle from her pajama pants into her shorts and even though the flash drive is in the middle of the bundle, under layers of fabric and kevlar and utility belt, she feels like it’s burning a hole through the whole costume. She tries to ignore it and she climbs into bed and curls up, her back to Tim, and falls asleep.

 

\----

 

Steph wakes up because the sun is an _asshole_ and the curtains in this motel are _awful._ She looks over at Tim who’s fast asleep on top of the covers, spread like a starfish, and Steph laughs to think that she would ever want to share a bed with him.

 

She crawls over to the end of her bed and reaches down to grab her duffel, and she puts it on her lap and unzips it, taking out the purple bundle.

 

She’s not sure if Tim even has his Red Robin outfit with him, but Steph’ll be damned if she’s going anywhere without her Spoiler outfit.

 

She unravels it and puts her cape around her shoulders, mostly for the familiar weight, and she tosses the actual suit part to the side of the bed behind her, and she keeps her utility belt on her lap, and opens up a pocket on her thigh belt, which she doesn’t normally actually use.

 

The flash drive looks almost _too_ ordinary for what it holds inside, and Steph flips it around her fingers and contemplates getting out her computer to look at the contents, except her computer’s all the way in the car and Steph isn’t sure if she feels like getting up or not.

 

She stops tossing the flash drive and instead just holds it in her hand, grateful for it, somehow, and reaches for her phone, but before she can make it there’s a knock on the door.

 

Steph shoves her cape and suit back in her duffel and closes the flap and goes to the door, tripping over Tim’s shoes and putting her flash drive in her pocket.

 

She opens the door and a teenager--her age, probably--with auburn hair and hazel eyes and a red hoodie with basketball shorts over white leggings with a red vertical jagged stripe down the middle and sneakers. He blinks at her.

 

“Hello?” she says, and he reaches out to touch her arm, which is, okay, _weird,_ and Steph says, “ _Excuse_ me?”

 

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, taking a step back. “That worked with everyone else, but you must not’ve known me well enough--”

 

“What the fuck?” Steph says, and from behind her she hears Tim’s groggy voice say, “Steph, what’re you--” and before he can finish, the other dude is somehow _past_ Steph and in the room, and Steph says, “That’s, like, breaking and entering--” but the dude stops upon seeing Tim and says, “Tim,” in a reverent sort of voice, and Steph blinks, because she knows Tim and used to be in love with Tim and even she’s not sure why anyone would ever say his name with _that_ tone of voice.

 

The guy reaches out and touches Tim’s forehead with his index finger, and Steph swears she sees lightning bolts fly, and Tim’s eyes, like, glaze over, and the guy turns back to Steph and says, “I’m really sorry, but I’ll explain everything in a second--”

 

“Bart?” Tim says, and his eyes are back to normal and his face is twisted in _joy_ and he lunges for the guy--Bart, Steph guesses--and they hold each other tight in a hug, and Tim says, “Oh my god, I can’t believe I forgot--” and Bart says, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” and Steph’s just standing there, confused.

 

“Hello?” she says, waving her arms. “What?”

 

Both boys turn to face her and she raises an eyebrow.

 

“I’m from the future and an alternate timeline, sort of, and I was erased from everyone’s memories, but everyone who knows me remembers me if I touch them, but I must not’ve known you,” Bart says. “Or not well enough, cause I know who you are, Stephanie.”

 

“Um,” Steph says. “If you know who I am then who are _you?”_

 

“Bart Allen, grandson of Barry Allen and Iris West-Allen, also known as Impulse,” Tim says, and Bart nods, rapidly.

 

“Okay,” Steph says, slowly, because that seems reasonable. “So how’d you find us?”

 

“Wallace told me that there wasn’t a Kon or a Cassie, but there was a Tim, so I went to go find him, but Wally told me that Dick told him that you were on the road, so I went to Gotham and retraced your steps based on where Cass told me you were,” Bart says. Tim turns to glare at Steph and she raises her arms in defense.

 

“If I hadn’t told Cass, you wouldn’t have your best friend or whatever back,” she says, and Tim’s face goes slack and he says, “Fair enough.”

 

Steph turns back to Bart.

 

“Kon and Cassie?” she asks, and Bart says, “Oh! In my timeline, before I stopped existing, me and Tim and Cassie and Conner--Kon-- were all a team and we were all superclose. I didn’t think that they wouldn’t, you know, exist here, but--”

 

“They might,” Steph says. “There was another Wally, here, before the first Wally came.”

 

“I guess,” Bart says, and Tim says, “I keep hearing the name _Conner._ My evil clone mentioned him.”

 

Bart sniggers.

 

“Yeah, you two were close,” he says, and there’s something about the way he says it that makes Steph feel suspicious.

 

“What were Kon and Cassie’s identities?” she asks.

 

“Superboy and Wonder Girl,” Bart says, and Steph says, “Then to find them we’d have to ask Clark or Diana.”

 

“Actually, since Clark is from an alternate universe, he might know more about Kon than we think,” Tim says, and Steph hits his shoulder. “Ow!”

 

“Clark’s from an alternate universe!” she says. “Dumbass! We could’ve asked him about the Batgirl thing and we wouldn’t’ve had to even leave Gotham!”

 

“I’m sorry!” Tim says. “I forgot!”

 

“What Batgirl thing?” Bart asks, and Steph says, “We found out that in an alternate timeline or universe or whatever, I was Batgirl, and--”

 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Bart says. “You _aren’t_ Batgirl now?”

 

Steph’s mouth drops.

 

“ _No,”_ she says. “Am I in your universe?”

 

“It’s more like a timeline than a universe, but yeah,” Bart says. “Yeah, you were Spoiler and you and I met cause you were dating Tim, and then Tim quit being Robin--”

 

“I was _Robin?”_ Tim says, and Bart makes a horrified face.

 

“You _weren’t_ Robin?” he says, and Tim shakes his head.

 

“No!” he says. “Out of respect for Jason, I took the name _Red Robin_ instead!”

 

The lie is familiar but it always sends a jolt through Steph. She thinks of the flash drive in her duffel and she wills herself not to look at it.

 

“In my timeline, you were Robin then you quit and Steph was Robin, then she died and you were Robin again, then Dick made Damian into Robin so you became Red Robin,” Bart explains, and Steph says, “I _what?”_

 

“You got better.” Bart shrugs. “And then you were Batgirl.”

 

“What happened to Babs?”

 

“She got shot and became Oracle,” Bart says. “Like, right after Jason died. Then Cass was Batgirl.”

 

“Cass? Cass Cain?” Tim asks, and Steph says, “Ulysses said she was Batgirl when he told me about me being Batgirl.”

 

“Huh,” Tim says.

 

“Were Tim and I together, all that time?” Steph asks, unable to help herself.

 

“God no,” Bart says, starting to laugh, then he pauses. “Unless you two are together right now, then--”

 

“No,” Steph says hurriedly. “No.” Tim gives her a wounded look and she pretends she doesn’t see it.

 

“Right,” Bart says. “Anyway, you broke up when Steph became Robin.”

 

“Good,” Steph says, and Tim says, “It doesn’t really matter cause we’re in _this_ timeline, though.”

 

“I guess,” Bart says, and they all shift so that Bart and Tim are sitting on Tim’s bed and Steph sits on her own. She pulls her duffel into her lap and starts to fold up her costume, slipping the flash drive back in her thigh belt when nobody’s looking at her.

 

“Do you think Clark knows where Kon is?” Tim asks. “Or how to find him?”

 

“No,” Bart says, and Steph blinks. “Kon is--was--a clone, so you’d know if he existed. But Cassie might be out there somewhere.”

 

“What’s her full name?” Steph asks, and Bart says, “Cassandra Sandsmark.”

 

“I wish I could remember either of them,” Tim says, frustration lacing his voice. “I’ve been trying to figure out who Conner was for weeks, but since I didn’t know where to start--”

 

“I can tell you about him, if you want,” Bart says, and Tim says, “I’d like that,” and Steph gets out her phone and starts typing.

 

“No Cassandras showed up, but a Helena did,” she says, looking up at them. “Helena Sandsmark’s archeology page showed is the first thing that showed up.”

 

“That’s Cassie’s mom!” Bart says. “Where is she?”

 

Steph frowns and clicks on the webpage and then clicks on the “contact” tab.

 

“Her address is in Gateway City?” she says, and Bart cheers.

 

“That’s where Cassie’s from!” he says, and Tim says, “California’s not _that_ far.”

 

Steph’s not really sure what’s happening, but it seems like she and Tim have picked up a new member for their road trip, although she’s not sure if Bart even wants to drive with them, but if he sticks around she can figure out everything he knows about her as Batgirl, and maybe that’ll be her missing piece, all the answers she’s looking for.

 

Steph’s been in the vigilante business too long to expect it to be that easy, but she’s always been more hopeful than Batman has.

 

“Alright,” she says. “Let’s go to California.”


	4. Chapter 4

Tim had said that California wasn’t that far, but that’s a lie, since it’s twenty three hours by car, but it’s somehow agreed without words that they won’t be stopping at any hotels, since they have three drivers instead of two now, or something. 

 

Bart goes with them without complaint, although if Steph was a speedster she doesn’t really think she’d go in cars ever, let alone for twenty-three hours.

 

Tim drives first and Steph is delegated to the backseat. She doesn’t have a lot of space since all of Tim’s shit is in the back, but she’s always been small so she makes it work. 

 

Tim and Bart talk about what Tim remembers of Bart, and the holes that come from not remembering two of four members of their squad, and Steph isn’t really needed for this conversation, so she gets back out the flash drive and this time she does pull out her computer and she plugs it in. The popup comes up to ask if she wants to even view the flash drive and she hovers over it, uncertain. 

 

She might as well open this can of worms now, so she clicks on it. 

 

It opens and it’s a file, organized just like anything in the batcomputer. Steph goes to the tab where she knows all the pictures are, and she has to put in a password to actually view them. As she types it in, she thinks that not even Tim knows this password, and it sends a weird sort of pleasure through her to think of it. 

 

There aren’t that many pictures, and she knows that they’re probably low quality, but she clicks on the first one anyway. 

 

It’s grimy and dark, and there’s a green and red blur in the corner that if Steph didn’t know what it was, she wouldn’t be able to recognize. She goes to the next picture and it’s an outline of Batman that you can only just barely see, and in front of him is a green-and-red-and-yellow shape that’s vaguely identifiable as a person. Steph likes this picture. 

 

There are a few more that are like this, then there’s a video that Steph would have to enter another password to view, but her stomach twists and she closes out of the file, takes out the flash drive. 

 

Steph wraps her hand around it and closes her computer, puts it back in her backpack. She leans forward, towards the space between the driver’s and passenger's seat, and she says, “Tell me about Cassie Sandsmark.”

 

“What do you want to know?” Bart says, and Steph says, “Anything.”

 

So Bart opens his mouth and tells them everything and anything he can remember, and Steph listens.

 

\----

 

They arrive in Gateway City at ten in the morning, and Bart pulls up to the house that the website says is Cassie’s with a vague suspicion. 

 

“Does this look right?” Tim asks, and Bart says, “How should I know?”

 

“I’ll go in,” Steph says. “It’ll be less suspicious.” 

 

“Okay,” Tim says, and Steph gets out of the car and ties her hair back in an effort to look nicer and takes a deep breath and marches right up to the door. 

 

She rings the doorbell and a middle-aged woman answers. 

 

“Hello?” the woman says, and Steph says, “Hi, is Cassie home?”

 

After she says it she realizes that she’s not even sure if Cassie exists, but the woman says, “Not at the moment. Who are you?”

 

“Oh, I’m from school,” Steph says, vaguely. “I would’ve called but I didn’t have her number, but my boyfriend knew where she lived, and….you know.”

 

“Right,” Helena says. “Well, Cassie’s at the gym, so I’ll let her know you came by?”

 

“I’ll just come back! What time will she be home?”

 

“In about an hour,” Helena says, and Steph says, “Great! See you then!” and leaves, bounding down the walk and back to the car. She gets in the passenger seat and says, “She’ll be home in an hour.”

 

“Cool,” Tim says, and Bart drives away. 

 

“Where are we going?” Steph asks, and Bart says, “I don’t know. Starbucks?”

 

Tim laughs and Steph grins and looks down at her phone. She sends a text to the unlisted number that says, “We’re in Gateway.”

 

She doesn’t get a response but she doesn’t expect one. She puts her phone back in her pocket as Bart rolls up to Starbucks. 

 

“I hope Helena doesn’t realize she never got my name,” Steph says, and Tim says, “We’ll just have to get back to their house before Cassie does.”

 

“Only fourty-five minutes in Starbucks, guys, not the whole hour,” Bart jokes, and Steph says, “Is it even, like, legal for speedsters to consume caffeine?” 

 

“No,” Bart says sadly. “But there’s other kinds of beverages at Starbucks!”

 

“True,” Steph says. “I forgot, cause I usually go with Tim, and you know how he is with coffee.”

 

“I’m so glad to know that even throughout the multiverses, some things are always a constant,” Bart says, and Steph grins and fistbumps him and Tim groans into his hands. Maybe having another one of Tim’s friends around will be more fun than Steph thought. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the filler chapter, up next is cassie >:3


	5. Chapter 5

They wait on Cassie’s street twenty minutes early, parked a few houses down from hers, but they can still see the driveway. Tim and Bart are talking, a dull noise that Steph’s not paying attention to as she peeks out the window. 

 

“There,” she says, as a small blue car drives past them and pulls into Cassie’s driveway. The boys’s conversation stops abruptly and then two girls get out of the car, one with blonde hair and one with black. The one with black hair is taller and looks older, and even from here Steph can see the muscles on her arms. 

 

“Is that  _ Wonder Woman?”  _ Steph asks, and Tim says, “No, no, it’s--Shit, that’s Donna Troy.”

 

“What?” Steph asks, then, “They’re going inside!”

 

“I’ve got it,” Bart says, then he’s outside the car and in front of the girls. Steph opens the car door and runs to them as well, Tim right behind her. 

 

“--the hell are you?” Cassie’s saying as they get closer. 

 

“I’m so, so sorry for this--” Bart says, then he reaches out and touches Cassie’s bare wrist and Donna says, “What are you doing--” but Cassie’s eyes go blank and Donna cuts herself off. 

 

“It’s like with Wally,” Tim says. “Like when you couldn’t remember him.”

 

Donna casts a confused look at Tim and then Cassie says, “ _ Bart!”  _ and wraps him in a hug. 

 

“Cassie!” Bart says, and Donna turns to Tim and Steph with murder in her eyes. 

 

“Okay,” she says. “Explain yourselves.”

 

“I’m Tim Drake, and that’s Stephanie Brown. We, uh, work in Gotham, if you catch my drift. I’m Dick’s younger brother.”

 

“Okay,” Donna says, her gaze softening ever-so-slightly. “Who’s that guy?” She jerks her thumb in Bart’s direction, where he and Cassie are talking quickly and quietly. 

 

“He’s Bart Allen. He’s Barry’s grandson and he’s from an alternate timeline. Ask Wally about him.”

 

“Wally’s at the Sanctuary,” Donna says. “Whatever. What are you doing here?”

 

“In my timeline, Cassie and Tim and Conner (he doesn’t exist in this universe) all were in a team together,” Bart says. “We came to bring the old gang back together.”

 

“I don’t remember Tim or Conner but I remember Bart and bits and pieces of our team,” Cassie says. “And I was so happy, then.”

 

“I’m sure you were,” Donna says with a tight smile. “But you don’t have any actual combat experience.”

 

“You’ve been training me for  _ months _ now,” Cassie says. “Just cause nothing big’s ever threatened Gateway doesn’t mean nothing ever will.”

 

“To be fair,” Tim says. “The best place to start a life of crime-fighting is with other crime-fighters. I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and I was trained by the best.”

 

“I’ve been doing it for longer than Tim,” Steph says, and Bart says, “And I’m pretty good, too.”

 

“Besides,” Tim says. “We’re really just going on a roadtrip, not really fighting crime.”

 

Donna sighs and pinches her nose. Steph isn’t sure when it was decided that they’re taking Cassie with them, but the way Cassie’s grinning and bouncing on her toes, Steph knows that Donna’s about to say yes. 

 

“Fine,” she says, and Cassie squeals. “Go pack a bag, and I’ll try and tell Helena what’s happening.”

 

“We need to readjust the car,” Tim says, and he and Bart run off. 

 

“I’ll help you pack?” Steph says, and Cassie says, “Okay, great.”

 

She grabs Steph’s hand and pulls her inside and up the stairs. Cassie’s room is small and kind of pink, but not overwhelmingly so. Steph likes it, and she goes over to Cassie’s nightstand and says, “I’m Steph, by the way.”

 

“Cool,” Cassie says, dragging a duffel bag from her closet. “Can you get my gauntlets from under the bed?”

 

“Yeah,” Steph says, and she kneels down and peeks under. There’s a few shoeboxes and Steph pulls them out, assuming that they’re in there, somewhere.

 

“So what’s your secret identity?” Cassie says. “Or is that a no-no to ask?”

 

“Nah, it’s okay. I’m Spoiler, who you probably haven’t heard of. I work with Batman.”

 

“Is Batman as big of a butt as Donna says he is?”

 

“Probably worse,” Steph says. “But I love him anyway.”

 

“Aw,” Cassie says, piling clothes into her duffel. Steph opens a shoebox that has papers inside it and closes it, reaching for another. 

 

“But don’t tell anyone I said that. I have an image to maintain.”

 

“Oh, of course not,” Cassie says. “I understand completely.”

 

“Good,” Steph says, putting down a shoebox that has old shoes in it and pulling up another one. “So how did you meet Donna?”

 

“Dad decided to give me powers one day and then he told Diana and Donna so they came to get me,” Cassie says. “Diana wanted to take me to Themyscira but Donna and Mom worked out a compromise. Donna’s been training me for months and Diana’s supposed to take me to Themyscira for Christmas break.” 

 

“That’s awesome,” Steph says. “I wish Batman took  _ me  _ to paradise islands.” Cassie laughs and the sound does something funny to Steph’s insides. “I mean, I guess he could,” she muses. “Maybe I just have to ask.”

 

She opens the shoebox on her lap to reveal two silver bracelets sitting on top of a coil of rope. 

 

“Got em,” she says, and Cassie says, “Can you put them in my backpack? You can dump out everything else.”

 

“Yeah,” Steph says, and she gets the mostly-empty backpack from Cassie’s desk and dumps the contents on the bed, sliding the rope and the gauntlets into the bag. “Anything else?” 

 

“Phone charger and blanket and my meds,” Cassie says, and Steph gathers them all up as Cassie runs to the bathroom to get her toiletries. 

 

When they’re finished packing, they go downstairs and Cassie hugs Helena. 

 

“You have to be back by the time school starts, okay?” she says. “And if you need anything you have to promise me to call Diana or Donna.”

 

“I will, Mom,” Cassie says, and Helena turns to Steph.

 

“You take care of her,” she says. 

 

“I promise, Mrs. Sandsmark,” Steph says, and she and Cassie go outside. Donna’s in her costume, and she gives Cassie a hug before she flies away. 

 

“Can you do that?” Steph asks, looking up after her, and Cassie says, “Yeah, actually.”

 

“Wicked,” Steph says, and the girls run to the car. Tim’s in the driver’s seat and Bart appears out of nowhere with a duffel over his shoulder. 

 

“Sorry, realized I didn’t have any stuff so I went and borrowed from Wallace,” Bart says, and he gets in the passenger seat. 

 

Cassie and Steph get in the back, where there’s still boxes between them, which makes Steph oddly sad. 

 

“Sorry there’s not much room,” Tim says as they pull away.

 

“It’s okay,” Cassie and Steph say together, and then they laugh. 

 

“I’m Tim, by the way,” Tim says, and Cassie says, “Cassie.”

 

“Rock on,” Tim says, and Steph laughs. “Let’s go find Superboy.”

 

And Steph and Cassie and Bart laugh, and they drive away together.

 


	6. Chapter 6

“What are we supposed to do when we find Kon?” Steph asks. The car falls silent and then Tim says, “What do you mean?”

 

“I mean we don’t have any more room in the car,” Steph says. “What are we gonna do, strap him to the roof?”

 

“Half my stuff is strapped to the roof,” Tim says, and Cassie says, “I could fly? Kon could fly? Bart could like, jog next to the car?”

 

“I appreciate that you specified that I would be jogging if I went at a car’s speed,” Bart says. “Maybe Kon and Cassie can, like, lift up the car, and fly it somewhere.”

 

“Sounds safe,” Steph says knowingly, and Cassie laughs, and for some reason, Steph is willing to do anything to make her laugh again. 

 

\----

 

They arrive at a hotel and Tim gets one room with two double beds, and when they’re unloading their bags Tim reaches for Steph’s duffel. 

 

She grabs it herself and snaps, “I can do it myself, thank you,” and swings it over her shoulder and marches inside. Footsteps sound and Cassie catches up with her. 

 

“What was that all about?” she asks, and they reach the elevator and Steph presses the button. 

 

“Tim’s my ex,” she confesses, and Cassie says, “Ohh.”

 

They step into the elevator and Steph drops her bag next to her, leaving her backpack on, and she says, “But when he was brainwashed by that neo-Nazi a few weeks ago I told him some things I shouldn’t have--to try and snap him out of it--and now he thinks we might have a chance again.”

 

“And do you?” Cassie asks. Steph snorts. 

 

“Not as far as I can tell,” she says. “And I tried to tell him, but.”

 

“ _ Boys,”  _ Cassie says derisively. “This is why I don’t bother with them.”

 

“I wish,” Steph says, and the elevator draws to a stop and the doors slide open. 

 

“Plus,” Cassie says, heading to step out of the elevator and turning to wink at Steph, “girls are  _ way  _ cuter.”

 

Cassie flips her hair and Steph’s face grows warm and for a second she’s incapable of moving. She remembers herself and grabs her bag and runs after Cassie, feeling a bit like she’s just been knocked over. 

 

Steph’s not an idiot; she knows that Cassie’d just flirted with her. She’s not threatened or whatever by it, she doesn’t care if Cassie’s a lesbian, and Steph knows what platonic flirting is, but--she’s not sure if Cassie was  _ actually  _ flirting? And she’s also not sure--not sure why the idea of it being genuine makes her stomach flip in dizzy circles.

 

They make it to their hotel room and Cassie opens the door for them; Steph and Cassie both dump their stuff on the bed. 

 

“I’m gonna go call Donna,” Cassie says. 

 

“Cool,” Steph says, and Cassie goes out to the balcony. Steph gets out her phone and stares down at it. She unlocks it and goes to her messaging app, picking out the Wonder Woman and the pink heart and the question mark and the girl shrugging emoji and sending it to Cass. Steph isn’t even sure what she’s trying to convey, but Cass has a knack of understanding, even if Steph doesn’t. Not much time passes at all before Cass sends back the black and blue hearts, which Steph knows is how Cass and Harper symbolize their relationship. Steph isn’t sure what Cass is saying, so she closes her phone and throws it across the bed.

 

Someone knocks on the door and Steph gets up to open it, letting Bart and Tim inside.

 

“Where’s Cassie?” Bart asks as the boys walk past her and Steph points to the balcony. Cassie comes back inside. 

 

“What time is it?” she asks, and Tim says, “I think it’s one or two in the morning.”

 

“Great,” Cassie says, and she goes to the bed that Steph’d already claimed. “Time for sleep.”

 

Tim goes to the desk in the corner of the room and gets out his computer, drawing his knees to his chest and typing madly. Steph wonders what the hell he’s been doing on his computer all this time, especially since they aren’t on a case or anything. 

 

Bart excuses himself to go buy out the vending machine, and Cassie goes to the bathroom to put on her pajamas. 

 

“I’m gonna change, too,” Steph says. “Don’t look.”

 

Tim doesn’t respond and Steph rolls her eyes. Typical. Naked girl about to be in the same room as him and he doesn’t even notice, not that Steph wants him to. She changes as quickly as possible and gets in the bed, drawing the covers up over her head with an upset huff. 

 

Cassie gets in next to her, joining her under the covers. 

 

“Hey,” Cassie whispers. “Sorry if I made you uncomfortable in the elevator.”

 

“No, it’s okay,” Steph says. 

 

“Okay,” Cassie says. “I was worried.”

 

“No, it’s okay,” Steph says again and Cassie grins sheepishly. 

 

“What are you doing under there?” Bart asks loudly. Steph hadn’t even heard him come in. She peeks out of the blankets, just letting her eyes come through, and she says, “Nothing,” in a voice that certainly implies that they’re doing  _ something.  _

 

“Yeah, Bart,” Cassie says, and Steph sees that Cassie is mirroring her position with the blankets. Bart raises a suspicious eyebrow at the both of them, then he launches himself on his own bed. 

 

Cassie and Steph go back under the covers. 

 

“Do you think he knows I’m a lesbian?” Cassie whispers.

 

“If you four were really as close as he says, then maybe,” Steph says, keeping her voice equally quiet. “Do you remember telling him?”

 

The light from under the blanket is dim, barely there, but Steph can still see Cassie scrunch up her nose in thought. 

 

“I don’t know,” Cassie says. “A lot of my memories are blurry and I don’t really have solid memories. It’s more that I know that he existed and he was my friend.” 

 

“Oh,” Steph says. “That makes sense.”

 

“Yeah,” Cassie says. The lights change and Steph assumes someone’d turned off the lights.

 

“The lights are off,” Bart says, loudly. 

 

“We got that, thanks,” Steph says, and then she pulls the covers back away from her head and says, “Goodnight, Cassie.”

 

“Night,” Cassie says. “Night, Bart.”

 

“Goodnight, ladies and Tim,” Bart says, and Tim grunts from his corner, where he’s still on his computer. 

 

Steph lays on her back and considers reaching out to grab Cassie’s hand. She doesn’t, and she rolls over and tries to fall asleep. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> up next: SMALLVILLE


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter but (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ ✧ﾟ･:

Smallville, Kansas, is  _ tiny.  _

 

It’s surrounded by wheat fields on all sides, and as it turns out, wheat fields are somehow flatter and more boring than previously imagined. Steph’s eyes glaze over after the third hour of looking at this, and she expects Smallville to be a reprieve from the monotony of Nowhere, Kansas, but it’s not, really. The buildings are small and you can still see the fields behind them. Smallville is basically two streets with a church, school, grocery store, and an ice cream shoppe, and not much else. The houses are past the town proper, spaced far apart and set back far from the road. 

 

They drive the town three times and Cassie says, “We need to stop. We’re getting stares cause we don’t have a dusty old pickup truck and we look like creepers, just circling the town.”

 

“Unless this timeline is different, I know where the Kent farm is,” Bart offers, and Cassie turns in the direction Bart’s pointing. 

 

“The Kents are dead, but I don’t think that Clark would sell his family house,” Tim says. “So it’s probably empty aside from some old memories.”

 

“Okay,” Steph says, and she’s from Gotham, come on, she’s never been afraid of ghosts, but--the idea of farm ghosts seems much scarier than city ghosts. She takes a deep breath and Cassie slams on the breaks and Steph flies forward in her seat, her seatbelt stopping her from actually going anywhere.

 

“What?” Steph says, and she peeks around the front seat to see Superman himself standing in the middle of the road, his hands on his hips and dust rolling away from him in waves.

 

“Jesus Christ,” Tim says, and Cassie parks where they are and they pile out of the car. 

 

“What are you kids doing here?” Superman asks as they come closer. He does a double take when he sees Cassie. “I thought Diana didn’t have a Wonder Girl.”

 

“I’m in training,” Cassie says, and Steph remembers, belatedly, that Clark is also from an alternate timeline and thus probably remembers Cassie and Bart and Steph being Batgirl and whatever else.

 

“I think you can guess what we’re doing here,” Tim says, and Superman looks between all of their faces, then he says, “You’re here for Superboy.”

 

“We’re trying to get the band back together,” Bart says. “You understand that, right?”

 

“Do you remember him?” Superman asks, and Bart says, “I do but they don’t.”

 

“Kon’s been plaguing me for months, though,” Tim says. “I’ve been hearing about him, and it felt like the answers were on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t reach him. Do you know how frustrating that is?”

 

“I have some idea,” Superman says, sadly. “How are you planning on finding Kon? The speedforce is shut down.”

 

“We’re crossing that bridge when we get to it,” Cassie says, and Tim says, “I already had some ideas.”

 

“We just wanted to see where he used to live,” Steph says, and Superman turns to look at her. Steph hasn’t actually met this Superman, just the old one, the one that died. But she thinks they’re similar, and he gives her a weird, searching look, then he turns back to them. 

 

“You don’t need a machine,” he says. “Or other plans. He’s already here.”

 

“What?” Tim and Bart say together.

 

“He fell out of the other universe a few months ago, and I found him and when he asked to be alone, I took him here.”

 

“Why’d he want to be alone?” Bart asks suspiciously, and Superman says, “Because when he got stuck here, Tim was dead.”

 

Steph’s hands fly up to her mouth and Tim makes a noise like he’d been punched. Bart turns to look at them, accusing, and Cassie just looks confused. Superman decides that  _ that’s  _ a good note to leave on, and he’s gone by the time Steph puts her hands down. 

 

“Let’s  _ go, _ ” she says, and they all turn and run back to the car. Cassie doesn’t wait for them to put on their seatbelts, just floors it once the doors are closed. 

 

“Where is it?” she asks, and Bart says, “ _ There!”  _ pointing at a house they nearly pass, but Cassie turns into the driveway on time, the tires screeching under them. 

 

“Oh my god,” Steph says, and Cassie says, “Sorry!” and drives down the long driveway. They park and at the same time the front door of the house flings open and a teenage boy with black hair and what Steph assumes is seventeen-year-old-Clark’s face. He’s in a hoodie and pajama pants and his hair is sticking up everywhere and somehow Steph thinks he’s just woken up. 

 

“Kon,” Bart says, quietly, and Tim throws his car door open and stumbles out of the car. 

 

Kon’s face is narrowed in suspicion and his gaze reaches Tim and his face drops and goes soft and he mouths  _ Tim.  _

 

Steph gets out of the car, and so does Bart and Cassie, but Kon doesn’t even seem to notice, because Tim is running towards him.

 

Kon reaches out and Tim falls into his arms and Steph thinks she hears Tim say, “Oh my god,  _ Kon,”  _ and she wonders how he remembers.

 

She goes to move closer, but then stops, because Kon and Tim are  _ kissing  _ and suddenly everything-- _ everything-- _ makes sense.

 


	8. BONUS CHAPTER ~

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bonus chapter...you're welcome

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Cassie screeches into the driveway and vaguely, Tim recognizes a conversation happening behind him, but he can’t focus on it. His nerves feel like they're on fire, and his apprehension levels are off the charts. 

 

He’s about to see Kon again. 

 

He still, frustratingly, doesn’t remember him, but everything that everyone’s told him points to Kon being the number one most important thing in Tim’s life, in the other life, and Tim has felt like he’s missing direction and motivation and everything else for a while now. 

 

He remembers what he’d told Steph before this crazy roadtrip.  _ I need people around me to keep me honest.  _ He’d meant that, and he wonders if maybe missing Bart, and Cassie, and Kon, have been what’s made these last few years so  _ awful.  _

 

The car stops and Tim hears a noise; he turns his head to see the front door of the Kent farmhouse flung wide open, with a boy in the doorway.

 

He looks like Clark, and he looks achingly familiar, and he looks like home, and he looks like Kon. Tim pushes the car door open and stumbles out, knowing--needing--to get closer.

 

Tim knows the moment Kon sees him, because Kon looks shocked and like he’s been punched and so, so happy. Tim runs to him blindly, because this is the first time he’s ever seen him and this is the millionth time he’s seen him.

 

He falls into Kon’s arms, and the arms wrapped around his back are familiar and new all at once, and suddenly Tim remembers. 

 

He remembers Kon’s right earring, and he remembers Kon’s jacket, and he remembers the black and red symbol on his shirt. He remembers Kon breaking into his room, and he remembers Kon’s face, lit up in anger, and he remembers the sound of Kon’s laugh. He remembers Kon’s smile, and his eyes, and the taste of Kon’s mouth.

 

“Oh my god,” Tim chokes out. “Kon.”

 

“I’m here,” Kon says. “ _ You’re _ here.” 

 

Kon’s hand is on Tim’s cheek, and Tim never wants to stop him to move it. 

 

“I found you,” Tim says, and Kon says, “You did.”

 

And Tim can’t stand it anymore, he can’t be so close and so far from Kon, so he reaches up on his tiptoes--Kon was always so much taller--and he kisses him, and everything is right once again. 

  
  
  



	9. Chapter 9

Steph and Cassie are set up in an old room on the Kent farm, one with dusty sheets and dull curtains. The furniture reminds Steph of every farm movie she’s ever seen, but also like her dad’s mom’s house, which Steph barely remembers except for hazy memories and faint impressions. Steph wonders, while she’s looking out the window at the barn, how long the house has been empty. 

 

“Did you know Tim was bi?” Cassie asks from behind her, setting her bag on the floor with a  _ thump.  _

 

“No,” Steph says, turning to look at her. The sun is streaming through the window behind Cassie’s back and making her hair light up in a golden sparkle, which is very distracting. “I don’t think he knew, either.”

 

“Hm,” Cassie says, and she sits down on the bed. “Gays really  _ do  _ travel in packs, I guess.”

 

“What?” Steph says, and Cassie says, “Me and Kon and Tim and Bart were all a squad, right? And I know  _ I’m  _ gay, and obviously Tim and Kon are, and Bart--I don’t know how I know, but I know. He’s not straight.”

 

“Huh,” Steph says, feeling strangely left out. Someone knocks on their door. 

 

“Cass!” Kon says, opening it after a second. “Come on, we’re gonna go fight in the barn.”

 

“Oh my god, what?” Cassie says, and she laughs and gets up. “Coming?”

 

“Nah, I’ll stay back here,” Steph says, sensing that she’s not wanted. Well, maybe she’s wanted by Cassie, but she’s sure that her presence would be awkward for Tim and Kon, and probably Bart, who just wants to hang out with his friends. “Have fun.”

 

“Okay!” Cassie says, and she and Kon leave, and Steph flops back on the bed. 

 

So Tim likes boys, and he’s in love with Kon, and now Steph doesn’t have to worry about Tim making a move on her, which should be a relief but it kind of isn’t. It makes her feel sad and guilty and empty and alone, left behind in the dust, and absolutely free. Tim is virtually out of the equation, and the weight off her shoulders feels the same as the weight that’s settled in her stomach. She wants to fly but she’s trapped on the ground. 

 

Steph suddenly can’t breathe, and she rolls over and pulls out her phone, fumbling at the screen almost without thinking.

 

Her phone buzzes and the screen clears and brightens to a familiar face when her call is accepted. 

 

“Steph?” Cass says, her voice raspy and quiet and familiar and Steph  _ misses  _ her.

 

“Cass,” she says. “Oh my god, Cass.”

 

“What happened?” Cass asks, and Steph recounts the whole story. 

 

“And now--I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she says, and Cass says, “Tim found what he was looking for. You didn’t. Not much else.”

 

“You think so?” Steph says, and Cass nods, solem and official. 

 

“Hang out...with Cassie,” Cass says. “Good for you.”

 

“Really?” 

 

Cass nods again, and then she says, “I have to go. Batman.”

 

“Okay,” Steph says, and suddenly she misses the adrenaline and the rush and the fight, and the smell of Gotham and the soft whisper of Batman’s cloak, and Batgirl’s voice in her ear and everything that comes with her city. Steph pushes the feeling down and she knows she can’t come home, not yet.

 

“Bye,” Cass says. “You will figure it out.”

 

“Thanks,” Steph says, and she tries to smile. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

 

“Soon,” Cass says, like a promise, and the screen goes dark and Steph turns so she’s laying on her back again. She closes her eyes and from outside she hears Cassie shriek and Tim’s laughter, loud and wild, and Steph isn’t sure when the last time she heard him laugh was.

 

She turns over on her side and reaches back for her phone, unlocking it and swiping out a text to the unlisted number. 

 

“Tim is happy.”

 

She doesn’t get a response and doesn’t expect one. But a few hours later, after Bart got them all takeout and the five of them cram into the living room and watch a movie, and Steph tries not to blush every time her elbow brushes Cassie’s, and Tim and Kon to  _ not,  _ actually, manage to separate for more than five minutes, after all of that, when Steph goes back upstairs and picks up her phone from where it’s still on the bed, and turns around to check it, she sees two new messages.

 

“Good.

But are you?”

 


	10. Chapter 10

They only stay at the Kent house for three days before Kon declares himself stir-crazy and says he’s been there too long and they need to go. Since the Super Sons disbanded, they decide to head to their secret base in Florida, since it’s fully equipped and off radar and all that.

 

They really _don’t_ have room for Kon and Bart and Cassie and Tim and Steph in the car, so it’s decided that Bart will run out there and check it out, and Cassie volunteers to go with him.

 

 _A girl, her ex, and his boyfriend are stuck in a car for twenty-four hours_ , Steph thinks sourly, sitting low in the car, her legs folded and pressed against the seat in front of her, her arms crossed over her chest. _It’s like the start of a bad joke._

 

But Steph is an optimist by nature, so she says, as they drive away, “So, Kon, have you ever met me before?” in an attempt to make conversation with this dude she’s never actually talked to before.

 

“One time I went to Gotham to visit my best-friend-slash-crush, who was Robin, and then you beat me up and I said ‘you aren’t Robin, you faker!’ and then Batman came and was like ‘begone, meta,’ then he said ‘come on, Robin,’ and I think it was the only time he ever _actually_ called you Robin and then I found Tim in his house and that was it,” Kon says, and Steph blinks.

 

“That seems….” she says, trying to think of the word for it, and then she realizes something. “Wait, what do you mean, ‘only time he actually called me Robin’?”

 

“Oh, well,” Kon says. “Um. In our timeline, I guess your time as Robin was sort of fake? Like, Batman was faking you out or using you or something. Tim never told me the details.”

 

“It probably wasn’t important,” Tim says, and Steph says, “Of course it’s important! I didn’t--I never--” She fumbles over her words, thinking about the flash drive hidden in the fake part of her shoe. She thinks about the blurry pictures and the file she can’t bear to look at.

 

“Was Batgirl real?” she asks, whispers.

 

“As far as I know,” Kon says, and he sounds honest and earnest and Steph’s embarrassed for caring so much, and she looks down at her phone and that’s the bat-way of ending the conversation, which Tim recognizes, so he starts up a different conversation with his new boyfriend, and Steph blinks back unshed tears.

 

\----

 

They stop at a gas station somewhere near the Missouri border, and Kon says, “I’m gonna go check on Cassie and Bart. I feel like I haven’t really talked to either of them in a while.”

 

“Go for it,” Tim says, and Steph shrugs. Kon presses a quick kiss to Tim’s mouth and sheds his flannel to reveal a black t-shirt with a red Superman shield on it. He nods at Steph and kicks off of the ground, flying away faster than Steph’s mind can fully process.

 

She turns to look at Tim, realizing that they’re alone for the first time since Bart came. He’s staring up at the sky and holding Kon’s flannel loosely.

 

“Let’s go,” Steph says, sighing, and she grabs Tim by the back of his shirt and snatches the keys from his hand, marching back to the car.

 

She slides in the driver’s seat and starts the car and Tim opens the passenger door and sits down, newly wearing Kon’s flannel. Steph is suddenly jealous, and wishes she had something of Cassie’s to wear.

 

She blinks and looks at the windshield. What?

 

She starts the car and heads to the highway, wondering if she and Tim will just not talk until they reach Florida and have a buffer made of people between them. She’s not sure if she thinks that sounds awesome or miserable.

 

They drive in silence for a few minutes more and then Steph can’t bear it anymore.

 

“So,” she says. “You have a boyfriend.”

 

“You _said_ you didn’t want to date me anymore,” Tim says defensively.

 

“That’s not--I don’t care about that,” Steph says. “I mean, maybe a little bit. I mostly care about how you never told me you liked boys.”

 

“Oh,” Tim says. “Well. I didn’t really know until I got Kon back. I guess in this timeline I didn’t realize it yet, but thinking back on what I know and remember about the old timeline, I think I’m exclusively attracted to boys.”

 

“Oh,” Steph says, and her heart falls through her stomach.

 

“I actually think that’s what I was missing, what I wanted to look for,” Tim says. “Something’d felt off for a while, but now that I know I’m gay--I don’t know, I feel a lot happier.”

 

“Cool,” Steph says, her hands tightening on the steering wheel.

 

“I mean, I have like, real friends now, too, so there’s that,” Tim says, and Steph says, “What happened to us, Tim Drake?”

 

“What do you mean?” he says. “We met, we kissed because it made sense, and you fell in love with me.”

 

“No! That’s not what happened at all!” Steph says. “We were _best friends._ I _loved_ you, and not necessarily in the romantic way! You were all I had for so long, and now you find your friends from alternate timelines and I’m next week’s garbage? That doesn’t sound like the Tim Drake I love.”

 

“I just said that I’m _ga--”_

 

“I know!” Steph exclaims, turning to look at him. “I don’t mean it like that. I love you like a friend, maybe even like a brother. I don’t care that you’re gay, or that you were with me for--obligation, or whatever. I care about our friendship. Our friendship was real and for a long, long time it was all I had. I don’t know what would’ve happened if I didn’t have you after Robin.”

 

Steph hasn’t mentioned The Robin Incident out loud in years. Tim’s face twists.

 

“I don’t care about romance,” Steph says. “I can’t emphasize that enough. But I don’t want to lose you entirely.”

 

“Okay,” Tim says. “Okay.”

 

Steph turns back to the road. Her hands are white from gripping the steering wheel too hard. She doesn’t really want to go to Florida. She’s tired and mentioning Robin out loud makes her think of what happened, and black flashes before her eyes and she smells blood.

 

Steph blinks back sudden tears and turns up the music, hoping to get lost in it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY A REAL CONVERSATION!
> 
> up next: the return of an OLD FRIEND and young justice gets themselves into a spot of trouble ;)


	11. Chapter 11

Steph’s driving, alone in the car. 

 

Kon’d come back, only to take Tim and head back down where Cassie and Bart were camped out. She’s been alone for a few hours, and playing  _ Fake Happy  _ on repeat for the last forty five minutes hasn’t helped her mood. 

 

The opening bars of the song play again, and are almost immediately interrupted by her phone ringing and hijacking the bluetooth. She presses the answer button without checking who’s calling. 

 

“What’s up?” she says.

 

“Brown,” a familiar, tiny voice snarls. “Why are there  _ people  _ in  _ my  _ base?”

 

“They thought you weren't there?” Steph says, wishing she could see what was going on down there. She imagined Tim and Cassie and Kon and Bart tied up somewhere with Damian pointing a sword bigger than him at them. 

 

“I always have an eye on my base,” Damian sniffs. “And I can zeta here instantaneously whenever I get the intruder alert, which isn’t subtle. I am not sure how Drake managed to trip it, because I thought he was at least  _ somewhat _ competent.” 

 

“He’s too distracted with his new boyfriend,” Steph says. “Jesus. Any chance you’ll let them out from wherever you have them trapped?” 

 

“No way in hell,” Damian says. Steph responds with an admonishing “language,” automatically. She sighs. 

 

“Well,” she says. “When will you let them out?” 

 

“Hm,” Damian says. “When you come retrieve them.” Steph hears noise from the other end of the phone. “Shut up, Drake!”

 

“Why do I have to come get them?” Steph asks, and Damian scoffs. 

 

“I need them to be in the hands of someone  _ responsible,  _ and though you are an inept fool you are a Bat, and thus are the best alternative for someone like Grayson or Father.”

 

Steph takes that as a compliment. 

 

“What about Tim? He’s a Bat.”

 

“And it was his idea to come here and bring his--his  _ friends,”  _ Damian spits, and Steph says, “Hold on, do you even know the people he’s with?”

 

“ _ Yes, _ ” Damian hisses. “They attacked  _ my  _ friends and almost  _ killed  _ Jon.”

 

Steph isn’t sure what he’s talking about until she remembers that Tim--evil Tim, Batman-from-the-future-Tim--had attacked Jon and Damian had brought the Titans into it. She remembers something about evil-Batman-Tim having teammates with him and she’d heard that they had been what--Wonder Woman, Superman, Flash? Cassie, Kon, Bart?

 

“Dami,” she says. “That wasn’t them. That was an evil version of them, from another timeline.”

 

“I know that,” Damian snaps, and then he says, quieter and smaller, “Just--come take them away?”

 

His voice is little and she remembers that he’s just thirteen, and that sometimes remembering alternate universe stuff is hard, and she can indulge him, just this once. 

 

“Okay,” she says. “I will.” 

 

Damian hangs up and Steph rubs at her temples with one hand and she reaches for a monster with the other. She’s in for a  _ long  _ night. 

 


	12. Chapter 12

 

Steph arrives at the base at three in the morning. She has to park a few blocks away from the base, and she moves her Spoiler suit into her backpack and takes it with her, just in case. 

 

The zeta into the base is inside a little shower to rinse off sand from the beach, and before Steph goes inside she looks out at the ocean, lapping at the sand softly, and when she looks around she’s utterly alone. 

 

Steph has, of course, been awake at three in the morning before, but three in the morning at a beach in Florida is different than three in the morning on the streets of Gotham. Everything here is quiet, with no noise besides the sea and a car rolling by somewhere behind her. In Gotham, three in the morning is loud and dangerous and exciting, and Steph isn’t sure which three in the morning she likes better. 

 

She steps into the shower and flips up the dial that turns on the water and presses on the button underneath. A green beam comes out of the showerhead and scans her, and then she dissolves into nothing. 

 

Steph reforms and shudders; she doesn’t like zetas. 

 

A cool voice announces that Spoiler has arrived, and a light turns on at the same time. 

 

She’s in a wide room full of various modes of transportation, and windows along the walls reveal the ocean around them. 

 

Steph walks to the first door she sees and finds a lounge with couches and a TV with various video game consoles plugged into it. On one side of the room, Cassie and Bart and Tim and Kon are all tied up, with Kryptonite set up on the ground in a circle around them and some sort of straightjacket on Bart’s legs. All of them except Cassie are gagged, and across from them on the couch Damian perches.

 

He’s wearing half of his Robin suit with a sweatshirt and a domino mask, a batarang in either hand. 

 

“What’s up?” Steph says, and Damian turns to her with relief obviously etched on his face. 

 

“Steph!” Cassie says before Damian can say anything. “Thank god!”

 

Steph smiles at her and turns to Damian. “Alright, let them go.”

 

“May I speak to you, first?” Damian asks, and Steph nods. They leave the lounge and go to an adjoining room that has two twin beds on either side of the room. Steph assumes this is his and Jon’s bedroom for sleepovers or whatever. 

 

“What is it?” she asks, and he says, “How did he find them? I thought they weren’t  _ real,  _ and then--”

 

“Oh, kiddo,” Steph says, sympathetically. “It’s okay. None of them want to hurt you.”

 

“But how?” Damian asks. “Drake doesn’t even  _ have _ friends.”

 

Steph recounts the whole story, leaving out her-whatever-it-is with Cassie. That’s none of Damian’s business. 

 

“...so there we are,” Steph finishes, and Damian peels the domino from his face, looking thoughtful.

 

“Okay,” he says. “But why are you still with them? You weren’t part of their team.”

 

“I don’t know,” Steph says. “I was trying to find myself, or whatever, but mostly I just feel like an outsider.” She sighs. “And it’s not like Tim even wants me to be there, and Kon and Bart don’t care about me.”

 

“Are you and Sandsmark friends?” Damian asks. “She is the only one who didn’t get their speaking privileges taken away.”

 

“I don’t know,” Steph says. “Maybe. I’d like to be her friend, but I think she’s trying to figure out being Wonder Girl, first.”

 

“Tt. You and her should be friends so you won’t be so lonely anymore,” Damian says, and Steph’s touched that he even bothered to notice. 

 

“Thanks, kid, but I don’t know if it works like that,” she says. “And I  _ have  _ friends.”

 

“Drake and Cain? Drake doesn’t care about you and Cain doesn’t count,” he dismisses. “She’s friends with  _ everybody.”  _

 

“I’m friends with  _ you,  _ gremlin,” Steph says, and Damian rolls his eyes. 

 

“Friends your  _ age,  _ I mean,” Damian says, and Steph reaches out and ruffles his hair. 

 

“Since you care so much, I’ll try,” she says, and Damian nods, satisfied. “Let’s go let them out, yeah?”

 

“Fine,” Damian says, and he puts his domino back on and heads for the door. Before he opens it, he turns to her and says, “And I  _ don’t  _ care.”

 

“Of course you don’t,” Steph says, and she grins at him. He gives her an oh-so-quick smile back before he turns again and opens the door. Steph shoulders her backpack and follows him out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter will be up in the next few days :)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

“So he’s your brother?” Cassie asks, leaning against the wall next to Steph and watching Damian and Kon spar--well, it looks like a spar but Steph can never be sure, with Damian. 

 

“Kinda,” Steph says. “More or less.”

 

“But he’s  _ definitely  _ Tim’s brother?” Cassie asks. 

 

“Yes,” Steph says. “One hundred percent, adoption papers and all.” 

 

“And you and Tim dated?”

 

“He’s gay,” Steph says, looking at Cassie. “So.”

 

“But you did date.”

 

“Yeah,” Steph says. “But already--it’s more like a brotherly thing than anything.”

 

“Brotherly dating?” Cassie asks, raising her eyebrow. Steph can see from the way her mouth is twisted that she’s just joking. 

 

“Brotherly  _ love,  _ Girl Wonder,” Steph says, then she pauses at her own words. Wonder Girl, not Girl Wonder. No, Girl Wonder is--

 

Steph doubles over, suddenly unable to breathe. Her chest tightens and her head feels fuzzy and the taste of blood fills her mouth and she thinks she may have bit her tongue. 

 

“Steph?” Cassie says, and for some reason her voice is fuzzy and far away. Steph wants to respond but she can’t, her voice strangled and gone. “Steph!” 

 

“What’s happening?” Bart’s voice asks. Steph is staring at her shoes, bent at the waist and pulling at her hair as she tries to get in control of her breathing. 

 

“Drake!” Damian yells and then he says, “Brown, are you okay? Brown!”

 

“Jesus,” Tim’s voice says. “Cassie, what--”

 

Cassie responds, but Steph can’t hear. Everything is fuzzy and blurry and Steph wants to stop but she can’t breathe.

 

“Fuck,” Tim says, his voice swimming back into focus. “Okay. Steph, listen to me, okay?”

 

Steph nods, and she realizes that tears have started falling down her face without her realizing. 

 

“What’s wrong with her?” Damian says, and he sounds close to tears. 

 

“Repressed trauma,” Tim says, and then he says, “Steph. Breathe in with me.”

 

She follows his instructions and breathes when he says and her heart slows and her breathing steadies and the tightening in her chest losens. Sometime during the whole thing she’d sat on the floor and she wipes at her eyes clumsily and croaks, “I’m sorry.”

 

Tim is kneeling in front of her and Cassie and Damian are on either side of him, worry pinching their faces. Kon and Bart are behind Cassie, looking confused and concerned.

 

“It’s fine,” Tim says. “Happens to all of us.”

 

“No it doesn’t?” Cassie says. “What the hell?” Tim leans back on his heels. 

 

“Being in the vigilante business for as long as we have has its repercussions,” he says. “It’s dangerous and sometimes things happen, things that we can’t  let go of.”

 

Damian shifts his weight and says, “But Brown’s only been Spoiler for a few years. Since after I started. And she never--I never heard about anything--”

 

“Yeah,” Steph says, a sudden well of anger and hurt and sorrow and fear rising in her chest. “You wouldn’t have.” She pushes a strand of hair behind her ear. 

 

“I don’t understand,” Cassie says. “What happened?”

 

“There’s a lot of things that Batman has to keep secret,” Tim says, slowly, choosing his words with care. “Sometimes even from the other Bats.”

 

“He  _ what?” _ Damian hisses, and Steph crosses her legs and pushes open the compartment under her shoe and retrieves the flash drive. 

 

It’s out in the open, now, and Steph thinks that it burns her hands, that anyone who looks at it will see right through it and into her. 

 

She hands the flash drive to Damian and says, “There,” before she stands up again. “I’m going to my room.”

 

She doesn’t actually have a room, as they all crashed on the couches last night, but Steph goes into Damian and Jon’s room and curls up on Damian’s bed, drawing her knees to tuck under her chin. She doesn’t cry, mostly just feels empty and embarrassed. She wonders how long she’s been walking around pretending to have real emotions when clearly all that’s inside of her is the trauma. 

 

Steph hugs her knees tighter and falls asleep, exhausted. 

 

\-----

 

She wakes up when the door opens and creaks; Cassie says, “Are you okay?” in a quiet voice and Steph wonders how long it’s been.

 

“Yeah,” she says, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Yeah, I’m good.” Cassie shuts the door behind her and sits on the end of the bed. 

 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Cassie asks, and Steph almost laughs, because talking about things is not that Bat way at all. 

 

No wonder her trauma’s repressed or whatever Tim’d said. 

 

“I just--” Steph starts. “I’ve been trying to think about it again, and to heal, and it’s so hard. I feel like it wants to burst out and I can’t tell anyone, and I don’t even know if I’m safe yet.”

 

“Well,” Cassie says. “If you can’t tell me about it, maybe you should talk to someone who you can tell, or who already knows.”

 

Steph thinks down the list. No way she can talk about it to  _ Bruce,  _ she hasn’t had a real conversation with Dick in years, she doesn’t really know Babs enough, Alfred--she doesn’t wanna bother Alfred, and the fact that  _ Tim  _ is her best bet right now isn’t exactly reassuring. 

 

“I don’t know,” Steph says. 

 

“Well bottling it up can’t be healthy,” Cassie says, and her beautiful face is twisted in concern, and Steph thinks to herself,  _ I must be less straight than originally thought.  _

 

She’s not particularly surprised at this revelation, since almost everyone she knows is gay, and she’s certainly thought about it before. But since she had Tim, she’d never really thought  _ that  _ hard about it. 

 

But Cassie’s face is beautiful and concerned and Steph’s heart is going  _ insane  _ and she knows that she’s halfway in love already. The thought scares her but Steph has never been good about backing away from things that scared her.

 

“Probably not,” Steph says after a minute of staring. “But healthily dealing with emotions has never been the Bat-way.”

 

“That’s awful,” Cassie says, and Steph hasn’t dealt with a non-Bat in a long time and she doesn’t know how to respond. 

 

“That’s just how it is,” she says uncomfortably, and Cassie makes a sympathetic face and says, “But it shouldn’t be.” 

 

Steph isn’t sure how to respond to that, either. 

 


	14. Chapter 14

 

Damian returns her flash drive. They’re alone and she closes her whole hand around it, bringing it back to safety. 

 

“Robin?” he asks, and she nods, doesn’t trust her voice. He surprises her by wrapping his arms around her middle and squeezing. She hugs back, her heart in her throat. When he pulls away, he says, “Does Todd know?”

 

“No,” she says. “No, he can’t. If he knew--”

 

“That bastard would get what he deserves,” Damian says, and Steph says, “No,  _ you _ can’t do anything, either. It’s been too long, and he was supposed to--we hid it for a reason.”

 

“I suppose,” Damian says, turning away. “Who can tell me what happened, fully?”

 

“Bruce,” Steph says. “Dick. Anyone before Tim.”

 

“Okay,” Damian says. “Okay. Kid Flash called me back with information for our new team and I have to go get him. You people can’t stay here while I’m gone.”

 

“We’ll find somewhere else,” Steph says. 

 

“Yes,” Damian says. 

 

He leaves, and Steph’s hand tightens around her flash drive. 

 

\----

 

There is a mountain in Happy Harbor, Rhode Island, that was a base at one point for them, in the other timeline.    
  
Bart suggests it and Kon vouches for it and they decide to go, and somehow Steph finds herself alone in the car again, driving up to Rhode Island, presumably on her own for the next twenty hours. 

 

_ If all I’m here for is to drive the car,  _ Steph thinks, angrily and sadly and bitterly,  _ than why am I here at all? _

 

She has to stop for gas and she buys a bunch of monsters and chips and skittles. When she gets back in the car, she looks down at the bright red packaging of the skittles and thinks that the only thing that's come out of this stupid trip so far is that she found out she wasn’t straight. 

 

_ I’m not even the only one who had said self-discovery,  _ Steph thinks, pulling out of her parking spot and back into the road.  _ Jesus.  _

 

The highway is boring and the south is boring and Steph is angry at Tim. She doesn’t know how much of this is actually his fault, but Kon is  _ his  _ stupid boyfriend and this whole roadtrip is  _ his  _ fault and now she’s not even special in that she found out she’s gay, and the whole thing is stupid and the Bats don’t even have their token heteros anymore, except maybe Damian but he’s a kid so who knows.

 

Steph immediately feels silly for even thinking any of this and she sighs, the anger dissipating. She drives on for about fifteen more minutes before she gets a call. 

 

“Do you wanna meet up somewhere for lunch?” Cassie asks, her voice singing through the phone. 

 

“All five of us?” Steph asks, and Cassie says, “Yeah, I think so.”

 

Steph checks the time and suddenly her mind is made up and she knows what she’s going to do. 

 

“Can we meet up in a few hours?” Steph asks.

 

“Let me ask them,” Cassie says, and Steph says, “Alright.”

 

Cassie says something, her voice muffled, and someone responds in the back. 

 

“That’s good,” Cassie says. “Will you call a little before you stop so we can decide where to go?”

 

“Sure,” Steph says. “But, uh, will you come ride it out with me?”

 

“Oh!” Cassie says. “Of course!”

 

They figure out where Steph is and she pulls over at the next rest stop and gets out of the car and waits. Only a few minutes pass before Cassie descends from the sky, the sun shining around her sky and making her look vaguely angelic. 

 

“Hey!” Cassie says, and Steph grins at her. They get in the car, Steph driving and Cassie in the passenger seat, and Cassie rolls down the window and her hair streams around her face and she sings along to the radio. 

 

“You have to sing too, you know,” Cassie says during an instrument break, as if it’s a rule, and Steph had been distracted by Cassie and also by trying to drive, but she says, “Okay, fine.”

 

Steph doesn’t know all the words to this song so she makes up new lyrics when she doesn’t know, and Cassie laughs at them and Steph’s face is warm, warm, warm, and she tightens her hands on the wheel and she needs to say something. 

 

She has to say it, she needs too--but the song changes and Steph  _ loves  _ this song and maybe--maybe she’ll wait a little bit, before she says anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you may have noticed that i updated the chapter count information--that's cause i finished writing the whole thing, so expect the next chapter soon!


	15. Chapter 15

 

“I need to tell you something,” Steph says, turning down the radio, and Cassie leans back in her seat and smiles and says, “Okay.”

 

Steph opens her mouth to tell her and to let it all out but her brain shorts and instead of saying what she’s rehearsed, what she’s practiced saying for months, weeks, years, she says, “I’m gay.”

 

“Nice,” Cassie says, and she reaches out for a high-five. Steph obliges, and her hand tingles and she’s not sure if it’s from touching Cassie or from the impact of the high-five. She opens and closes her hand and says, “I think I’m bi.”

 

“Awesome,” Cassie says. “The world can always use more bi people.”

 

“Thanks,” Steph says, and she puts both hands on the steering wheel. “I need to tell you something else.”

 

“Okay,” Cassie says. 

 

“It’s--it’s about my, uh, panic attack,” Steph says. “And the repressed trauma.” 

 

“Oh,” Cassie says. 

 

“I, um, wanted t-to explain,” Steph says, and Cassie says, “It’s okay, Steph, you don’t have to tell me anything. I understand.”

 

“I just--you know how Bart and Kon are from the alternate timeline where everything’s different?”

 

“Yeah,” Cassie says, slow. 

 

“Well, in that timeline I was Spoiler, then Robin, then Batgirl, and the whole reason I went on this trip was to figure out about the Batgirl stuff, because me? As Batgirl? That’s crazy. But, uh. Me as R-Robin? Is a little less crazy.”

 

Steph stares at the road ahead, determined to speak and to not look at Cassie until she was done.

 

“After the s-second Robin d-died” Steph starts, and her mouth doesn’t want to form the words but she forces it to. “I became Spoiler for the first time.”

 

“First?” Cassie asks, and Steph nods.

 

“Y-yeah,” she says. “B-but then Batman recruited me and t-trained me and s-said I made him  _ better.  _ S-so I became R-Robin.”

 

Steph wants to squeeze her eyes shut but she’s driving so she lets the hot tears roll down her face. She wipes at them with her hand and stares at the car in front of her. It has a South Carolina license plate. 

 

“And it was  _ so good,”  _ Steph says. “It was better than anything. But...but I got tangled up with B--with Bla--with a local crime boss, and I--I--” She can’t continue, visions of his horrible face and blood and pain dancing in front of her eyes. She bites her tongue to ground herself. “And B-batman decided that I couldn’t….that I had to...so I stopped crime-fighting. To ‘heal’. But I felt okay. But I’m not okay.”

 

“Oh, Steph,” Cassie says, and she reaches out her hand and touches Steph’s shoulder, grabs her hand. “That’s--I’m so sorry you had to go through all that.”

 

“They call Robin the  _ boy wonder,”  _ Steph whispers. “So I was--I was--”

 

“Girl wonder,” Cassie says. “I understand. Do you--do you need me to drive?”

 

“Please,” Steph says, her voice thick with tears, and she pulls over so they can switch. When they’re both outside the car, Cassie draws her in for a hug and Steph holds on tight, trying not to shake too badly and failing miserably. 

 

“It’s okay,” Cassie whispers, and Steph wishes it was. 

 

They get back in the car and Steph rubs her eyes, a little embarrassed but also feeling lighter than she has in ages. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more chapter guys :') i'm not ready for the end yet and i've already written it someone help me


	16. Chapter 16

Steph and Cassie meet up with the boys at a Dairy Queen in Georgia. They sit outside, at the picnic tables, except everyone uses the tables as a seat and their laps as a table. Steph feels like a normal teenager for once, but she knows it can’t last.

 

She and Cassie share french fries and sit shoulder-to-shoulder. Kon and Bart launch into the story of how they met each other, in the other timeline, and Steph leans her head on Cassie’s shoulder. She knows she’s not in this story. 

 

Steph feels like a side character in her own life, and she lets Cassie feed her a french fry and she thinks that there’s no place for her in this trip, not anymore, maybe not ever. She’s an intruder, and they’re too polite to say so. 

 

When everyone’s done eating, Kon gathers everyone’s trash and throws it away. When he comes back, Steph gets down from the table and says, “I’m not coming.”

 

“What?” Cassie says. 

 

“I’m not going to Happy Harbor,” Steph says. “I think you guys should go on without me.”

 

“Why?” Bart asks, and Steph says, “This whole thing is about the four of you, not about me. You guys don’t need me.”

 

“Are you sure?” Tim asks, and Steph almost gets angry at how easy he lets her go, but she pushes it down. He’s a Bat, and Steph thinks that means he understands her better than she wishes he did. 

 

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

 

Cassie’s making a face and Steph’s stomach flips and tumbles in circles. She feels like she’s betraying Cassie, a little, but sticking around when she’s unwanted for the sake of a crush is a little  _ too  _ pathetic for Steph’s taste. 

 

“I can probably pick up the car,” Kon muses. “Fly it to Rhode Island.”

 

“It’d be faster, for sure,” Bart says, and Kon says, “If Cassie helps me. Cass?”

 

“Wh--yeah,” Cassie says. “Yeah, I’ll fly the car. What, are we just gonna leave Steph here?”

 

“I’ll be fine,” Steph says. “I’ll hitchhike my way back.”

 

She’s joking but Cassie looks distraught and Steph gives her a fragile smile. 

 

“I’ll be fine,” she says again, and Cassie throws her arms around her. 

 

“I don’t want to leave you,” she says, and Steph says, “Then when you and Tim and Bart and Kon are done finding yourselves, or when you have a spare weekend, come find me. I’ll be there.”

 

“Promise?” Cassie says, and Steph tightens her arms around Cassie’s middle. 

 

“This doesn’t have to be goodbye,” she says, and Cassie says, “Maybe--maybe I can ask Diana if you can come to Themyscira with me over Christmas break.”

 

“I’d like that,” she says, and when Cassie draws back from the hug Steph leans in and presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth, entirely on impulse. Cassie’s eyes widen in shock. 

 

“There,” Steph whispers. “Now it’s a promise.”

 

Cassie turns around to face the boys and she says, “Turn around.”

 

“What?” Kon asks, and Cassie makes a turning motion. 

 

“Stop staring,” she says, and the boys all shuffle around in a circle so their backs are to them, and then Cassie turns back around and kisses Steph on the mouth. 

 

Steph sighs into it and brings her closer, holds her tighter. 

 

“ _ Now  _ it’s a promise,” Cassie says, pulling away. 

 

“Good,” Steph says, and Cassie giggles and steps away. 

 

“You can turn back around now,” she says, and they do, Bart grumbling, “It’s not like we didn’t know you two were kissing.”

 

Steph meets Tim’s eyes, and he looks approving and happy and Steph thinks that maybe the walls between them will start to fall, now. She’s glad, because she’s missed him. 

 

“We should get going,” Kon says, and Cassie says, “Yeah, of course. Let’s go get that car.”

 

She and Kon run off, Kon waving goodbye and Cassie turning back one, two, three times to wave at Steph, and blow a kiss the last time she turns. 

 

Steph feels lighter than air and so so happy and when Bart goes in for a high-five she draws him in for a quick hug. 

 

“What’s that for?” he asks, and she says, “For finding us in the first place.”

 

He grins and then he’s gone, and it’s just Tim and Steph. For a minute, she doesn’t know what to say. 

 

“See you in Gotham, Stephanie Brown,” Tim says, and Steph says, “See you in Gotham.”

 

He leaves, and Steph watches the car and Kon and Cassie fly overhead, and she waves even though she doesn’t think they can see.

 

She sits back down at the bench, pulls out her phone. She dials up the first number she can think of. 

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Hey, Dick,” she says. “I was wondering how fast you could get to Georgia.”

 

“Why?” he asks, and she says, “I’m coming back home, and I need a ride.”

 

“Send me your location,” he says. “I’ll be right there, Stephers.”

 

He hasn’t called her that since--since Robin, but they haven’t really talked since Robin, either. She grins and she thinks she’s okay if he brings the old nickname back. 

 

“See you soon, Dickhead,” she says, and he laughs. 

 

“See you soon,” he says, and they hang up. She texts him her location, then she goes to the thread she has with the unlisted number. 

 

“Hey, B,” she texts. “Remember when you asked if I was happy, and I never responded?”

 

The reply is instantaneous. 

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well, I’ve just now decided that I’m really, ridiculously happy.”

 

“Good.”

 

Never let it be said that Bruce Wayne is a particularly verbal type of person, but he chooses his words with care. 

 

Steph grins and pockets her phone, leaning back against the table and looking up at the sky. She has nothing with her except her backpack at her feet, and she doesn’t think about the flash drive hidden in the secret pocket in her backpack. Instead she thinks about Spoiler, and running through the rooftops and adrenaline filling her veins, and she thinks about how she’s done too much in the last few weeks and how she hasn’t done enough, and she waits for Dick to come get her, and the afternoon sun beats down on her, because it’s Georgia and it’s summer, and she misses Gotham so much she could burst. 

 

Dick arrives in a stolen Batplane and he grins and pulls her in and he says, “Are you ready?”

 

“Yeah,” Steph says, looking back at the mostly-abandoned Dairy Queen. “Yeah, I think I am.”

 

\-----

 

_ “I think the best option is for Robin to stop,” Bruce says. “For Robin to...disappear.” _

 

_ “What do you mean?” Dick asks. Steph’s eyes flutter open. Bruce and Dick are standing next to her hospital bed, conversing in low voices, probably so Steph won’t hear, but her hearing is one of the only things that’s  _ not  _ messed up.  _

 

_ “I mean,” Bruce says. “The best way to protect her is if we let Black Mask think she’s dead.” _

 

_ “How do we do that?” Dick asks.  _

 

_ “No more Robin,” Bruce says. “She’ll recover and she’ll just have to stay a civilian. It’s for her own good.” _

 

_ “No,” Steph croaks, her voice barely working but her heart spinning out of control. No more Robin? No more Spoiler? “He doesn’t--he doesn’t know I’m Spoiler--I can--” _

 

_ “No,” Bruce says, his voice soft. “He’ll kill you.” _

 

_ “No,” Steph repeats, and tears are streaming down her face but she can’t move to wipe them because it hurts too much. “No, he can’t take Robin away from me.” _

 

_ “It’s for your own good, Stephers,” Dick says. “We can’t have another Jason.” _

 

_ Steph doesn’t want to be another Jason. She wants to overcome. This feels like giving up. This feels like letting Black Mask win. _

 

_ But she hurts too much to let anyone else hurt, too. She’ll just carry all of it. It’ll be okay. _

 

_ She’ll be okay.  _

 

\------

 

And she was.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's about it!!!
> 
> some notes:  
> -damian canonically shot black mask recently. #when you accidentally make up an explanation for canon BS  
> -in an early chapter tim is like "I Was Never Robin To Honor Jason" but actually he was never robin because steph was robin at the time  
> -uhhh the whole point of this fic was to divorce steph and tim from each other because lately in the comics everything steph does has revolved around tim and I Dont Like That  
> -steph DOES go to themescyria with cassie :')  
> -there are a couple people who have commented on every chapter and i'd like to thank them for doing that, you guys made updating something to look forward to  
> -by the way, somehow this fic actually remained canon compliant throughout the whole thing....i'm sure that'll change soon enough but as of rn it still is :)))  
> -if you have any questions about the fic i'm on tumblr @sqoiler :D come on by, shoot me an ask, whatever!!  
> -and thank EVERYONE for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading & I hope you enjoyed! Comments/kudos are always welcome :)


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